After a short pause, he continued slowly in a tremulous voice:

"Oh, God, that I should find thee here,
Only to cause my woe,
For thou wilt vanish from my gaze,
Ere the first cock doth crow."

"No, no," she murmured, almost inaudibly, sinking into his arms, which
clasped her wildly and ardently, pressing her to his heart, while his
lips showered kisses upon her and a sudden ecstasy began to cloud her
senses.

Then, just at that moment, the clock in the Marktbreit church steeple
struck two, the blast of the horn followed, and the mysterious voice
rose in the invisible city and sang, this time close at hand and
seemingly with significant emphasis:

"Two paths are to each mortal shown;
Lord, guide me in the narrow one."

As if stung by a serpent, Ada started up, wrenched herself by a sudden
movement from Karl's clasping arms, and hastened away as though pursued
by all the fiends of hell. A moment later, her white figure had
vanished in the castle and Karl found himself alone before the grassy
bank; he might have believed it a dream if the mantilla had not still
lain there exhaling Ada's favourite perfume, a faint fragrance of
carnations.

With heavy, dulled brain, aching limbs, and a strange sense of pain in
his heart, Karl staggered back to the castle and to his room. For a
long time sleep fled from him. A thousand scenes hovered in a confused
throng before his fancy, blending into a witch-dance in whose mazes his
own brain seemed to whirl also, until the giddiness became intolerable.
He saw Ada in various transformations--now seated opposite to him at
the table--then in the drawing-room--anon clasped in his
arms--sometimes brightly illuminated as the queen of the
ball-room--sometimes a faint, dark vision against the sombre background
of the woodland--he inhaled her favourite perfume, felt the touch of
her arms and her lips--he heard her voice and the melancholy music of
the night watchman and the notes of the dancing tune from the ballroom,
and amid these exciting delusions of the senses a restless,
dream-haunted slumber at last overtook him.

* * * * * *

It was almost noon when he awoke. At first his head felt confused and
empty, but gradually he collected his thoughts, and now the experience
of the previous night again stood clearly before his eyes. He suddenly
recalled all his feelings during the walk through the woods, and, while
dressing with the